Eugene Jarecki: Obama pot policy disappointing

When President Barack Obama invited voters to submit questions to him via YouTube following this year’s State of the Union address, 18 of the 20 most popular questions concerned marijuana policy. It’s one of many signs that advocates of a new national drug policy — easing criminal enforcement, widening access to medical marijuana and winding down the “war on drugs” — are disappointed with Obama on the issue.

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“I think Obama has left a lot of people scratching their heads as to their approach to the drug war,” he told POLITICO. “When he came in, many who did not like the drug war had high hopes that he would represent a departure from it. But, either because Washington is as it is or it’s something in his nature to take his time and be analytical about things, he and his team have been far less robust in seeking reform than people would have expected.”

Jarecki, whose work includes “Why We Fight,” “The Trials of Henry Kissinger” and “Reagan,” turns his lens on the nation’s marijuana policy in his new film, “The House I Live In,” which examines the personal lives affected by the “war on drugs.” The film opened Friday to critical acclaim, with the New York Times calling it “a model of the ambitious, vitalizing activist work that exists to stir the sleeping to wake.”

“One looks forward to what a second term Obama would look like on a subject like the drug war,” he continued. “Perhaps he would have fewer people spending their mornings looking for erroneous typos in his birth certificate so that he might actually be in a dialogue with people about the best hopes of the American people rather than, frankly, their own political mischief, which is what he’s been experiencing a great deal of.”

Washington bares much of the responsibility, according to Jarecki.

“Even if Obama had set about to completely overhaul the system, he would have found himself embroiled in the same kind of fight with very corrupt actors as we find all through Congress — and corrupt meaning they get money from private interests whose bidding they do. They are all pleaders on behalf of their corporate patrons.”

It’s that very dysfunction on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, according to Jarecki, that needs to be dealt with and which confuses his view of the Obama administration’s position on marijuana legalization. “It’s hard to know whether to fault him or whether to empathize with him on this subject.”

Jarecki says that the political salability of “the war on drugs” is so embedded in Washington culture that it’s not likely to go away anytime soon.

“Politicians love talking about the war on drugs because it works and it helps get them elected,” said Jarecki. “We’ve seen politicians of both parties who agree on almost nothing except being tough on crime and it is a special chemistry with threatening voters about their neighbors and how we have to be absolutely draconian and that’s worked for a long time.”

Jarecki says that even though the nation’s drug policy has been “a failure,” politicians won’t give up on it because it would be an admission that their own “federal monstrosity” didn’t achieve any results.

“We could not have more severe drug laws in this country and we’ve achieved nothing with this severity. So at some point, we need someone to say, ‘Enough,’” he said.

“Washington is so broke in a fundamental way on this score that we end up elevating cowardice, we end up idolizing carelfulness on behalf of a politician when what we need is vision.”

Readers' Comments (6)

Cannabis is far less harmful and far less addictive than alcohol. We could GREATLY reduce the amount of harm and addiction in society by giving people the right to switch from the more harmful drug, alcohol, to the less harmful drug, cannabis.

It is outrageous that our elected officials actively prevent this reduction of harm in society!! Legalize - Save Lives.

Legalize and tax it already. All thios song & dance over medical uses in bogus. Me, I'd be happier if weed were legalized and taxed just like alcohol. And, think how much cash governments would save on court and incarceration costs.

Legalize and tax it already. All thios song & dance over medical uses in bogus. Me, I'd be happier if weed were legalized and taxed just like alcohol. And, think how much cash governments would save on court and incarceration costs.

If you got any hope that Obama will legalize pot you are sadly mistaking. All those drug councilors, the cops in the high schools, the DARE program, the DARE car, the DARE dog, the rehab facilities, etc. are all big government parasites locked into the system. When people scream about legalization, the big government Obama comeback is we are offering "treatment". Stop the wishful thinking and start seeing Obama as the big government toletarian that he is.

How can any responsible parent not desire a saner drug policy, and one that’s based on facts rather than reefer madness? Prohibition guarantees that many illegal drugs are far easier for our children to procure than even alcohol or nicotine. That's because, even though these are both very dangerous and addictive drugs, they are at least sold in properly controlled and regulated environments.

Under our present regime, certain plants/concoctions/drugs are sold only by criminals and terrorists; the huge black-market profits are used to threaten innocent civilians, bribe law enforcement officials, and buy support from unconscionable politicians; the availability and usage rates tend to go up, not down, and our prisons have become filled to capacity with easily replaced vendors and smugglers —this list of dangerous and negative consequences is actually endless. To continue prohibition is ludicrous, and those of us who can't see that by now, must be either severely and mentally challenged or using something far stronger than any of us have even heard of.

Why on earth should we be willing to whack ourselves with ever-bigger and more-repressive prohibition hammers, while drug use and availability keep going up, not down, and while we all plunge deeper into Loserville?

Prohibition is the most destructive, dysfunctional, dishonest and racist social policy since Slavery. Prohibition is a holocaust in slow motion. We MUST end it NOW!